Getting the Most Out of Online Job Websites

New features help you network, research companies and salaries

Explore Niche Websites

These sites often include listings that don't show up elsewhere. And since fewer people think to look for jobs on them, there's a greater chance that your résumé will be noticed, says career coach Rita Carey. Here are some examples.

Visit sites specializing in precise fields or cities, such as dcjobs.com if you live in Washington, D.C.

Workforce50.com has a search tool, managed by Indeed, to "find jobs for Boomers, Seniors and Experienced Workers."

Dice is the leading site for tech job seekers. You can search by company, job title, keyword and location. There's also career advice and tech news for job seekers.

Snagajob. If you're looking for an hourly gig, this online marketplace has over 300,000 job postings available at any one time. You can search for specific jobs by title, industry or company and filter results by location.

Job-Hunt.org. This free online guide, curated by Joyce, has links to thousands of employers and associations and focuses on providing job seekers over 50 with articles written by experts covering topics ranging from avoiding job scams to best ways to use LinkedIn and Google Plus.

CareerBuilder is among the leading job boards, providing job listings, résumé posting, and career advice and resources to job seekers. CareerBuilder pulls from career sites of more than 1,000 partners, including 140 newspapers and leading portals such as MSN and AOL.

Encore.org is the place to go for boomers attracted to second careers in the nonprofit sector. The site links to nonprofit job boards and sites, but its own job listings page is a good place to start. That's where you'll find the Encore Career Finder tool, now in beta, which filters through more than 5 million listings to winnow by area of interest, keywords and your ZIP code or state. There's also a job listing page that links to search pages on sites such as Idealist,Greenbiz and others.

Glassdoorallows members to sign in via Facebook to find "Inside Connections" at a company through their Facebook network, so you can see where your friends worked or recently worked. You can browse the latest job listings, as well as view company-specific salary reports, recent interview questions, employee ratings and reviews, CEO approval ratings, interview questions and reviews, office videos and more.

New members to Glassdoor get 10 days of access to everything posted by the community. To upgrade to unlimited access, you must "give back" by posting an anonymous inside look of your own.

Monster, one of the original job boards, has expanded to include other resources. You can search for and apply for jobs online, post a résumé, review company profiles, and get salary information and career advice. "BeKnown from Monster" puts you in touch with possible "connections" via Facebook.

Salary.comand Payscale. Both sites can help research salary levels where you live and for the position you're seeking. Payscale has a feature called Get Your Personal Salary Report and a new tool to help find your "dream job." PayScale's database filters jobs based on criteria such as salary, location, education and flexibility.

Sumry. This new résumé-building service officially launched in January 2014. Job hunters can get started with a weeklong free trial, then pay between $2 and $5 a month afterward. It converts a traditional résumé into a single webpage. Sumry guides users through a step-by-step process with prompts such as, "Tell Your Story Here" and "OK, Hit Them With Your Skills." The résumés, which are available in six colors, can be viewed as a webpage, downloaded as a PDF or shared via social media. The option to include a 30-second video is also expected to roll out by the end of this month.